What exactly makes someone a good guitarist? Well, a keen ability to not make listeners rip their ears out of their head is a good start, a style is nice, and technical flair could never be bad. Heightening songs to a point they are recognizable in a note is not frowned upon, either, similar to the talent of making your guitar speak without opening your own mouth once. That’s impressive. Lots of guitarists are good, great even, but only one is the best. And that player is Jeff Beck.
It seems lost on people just exactly who was lost on the 10th of January this year. We didn’t lose a rock guitarist, we lost the guy who exemplified every single thing the electric guitar could be. One whose guitar sang a piece better than The Beatles, who pioneered hard rock AND jazz-rock fusion in the span of six years, and was quite literally looked up to and respected by every guitarist, singer, bassist, drummer, or songwriter to come after his 1965 debut.
We have to thank two of rock’s worst offenders for its best: the dismally overrated Eric Clapton and the pedophillic Jimmy Page. We thank Clapton for being a “blues purist” [loose, because he is also notorious for such horrible racism we now have Rock Against Racism that it’s almost oxymoronic for him to be a purist of black music whilst being a a racist] and leaving The Yardbirds for a more bluesy group, and Page for upon being offered Clapton’s role, refusing [to make more money from session work], and recommending our temperamental guitar hero, Jeff Beck.
One thing no one will say about Beck is that he was easy to work with. Beck’s stint with The Yardbirds lasted merely two years before he was kicked out with basically a one against all mentality. Whilst being arguably the most talented member, bringing his signature styling as well as groundbreaking use of feedback and distortion into their music [and making it more mainstream], he was not necessarily a great team player. The band cited his firing due to his “clear” mental and physical problems. Those issues along with his dismal attendance record, anger issues, and “demanding personality” were not working well and in 1967 he was ou
ted by the band. It seemed as though the band's small cameo in the French-New Wave film Blow-Up, where Beck smashes up his guitar and speaker, was not out of complete fiction. Now, surprisingly, this was not another rock and roll trademarked “golden-goose” killing - the band had brought on Jimmy Page anyways during Beck’s stint so the guitar was in admittedly good hands [only for guitar though]. You could label Beck to be along the sidelines with CCR frontman John Fogerty or Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones but there was one major difference: leaving as opposed to being fired. Beck wasn’t taking himself out of the equation to do bigger and better things, feeling trapped by talent. Nope. Beck was outed on the streets at the height of his group's popularity, something that should've eaten him alive.
1967 was not the year to be thrown out on your own. The year of Sgt. Peppers? The Summer of Love? Every avenue for rock is seemingly already covered, and even worse for Beck is guitar virtuosos popping up everywhere. Hendrix, Green, Richards, Harrison, even Page! Realistically, you’d accept your fate as a temperamental genius and pack it up, but, being temperamental [and a genius], Beck was able to make The Yardbirds the least important piece of his resume.
The following year would see the release of Beck’s first solo album, Truth, and despite only holding a credit to his name, was the birth of the original iteration of the humbley titled Jeff Beck Group. The original line up featured Beck [surprisingly] on guitar, Micky Waller on drums, Ron Wood on bass, and Rod Stewart on vocals. With a casual line up of what would
become some of the most celebrated men in rock and roll history, Beck would ever so casually pioneer what we would now call hard rock. The type of bluesy, rough music Beck and his group were making would be the precursor to all things Zeppelin [never once did a music snob ever think they would ever have to thank mister ‘do ya think I'm sexy’ himself Rod Stewart for giving them their favorite blonde, moaning himbo], but as you probably didn’t know this group existed we can piece together it didn’t last. For one, Beck was a horrific band leader, Stewart even proclaiming he and Wood were paid so little they had to steal to survive. Couple this, the fact Wood and Waller were fired mere days before the band was supposed to tour, and the fact that Stewart refused to publicly say a nice word about the man for almost a decade and you’ll find the second group Beck would buckle.
Wood and Waller were in but out, as finding a rhythm section that quick would be impossible but what then? All the band was was a singer and guitarist, one unknown and the other creating a reputation of inhospitality that would become legend. Needless to say the Jeff Beck Group died just as it started, and Beck was already onto better things [because I guess the whole ‘creating Led Zeppelin' thing was just an accident, a small detour if you will.] Next, to quell his growing reputation of hating the rhythm section, he would team up with Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert of Vanilla Fudge to create a supergroup… that was together for exactly one album. Now, at this point no one should be surprised by that length, a whole album with the same two people and no hatred was near unheard of for Beck by this time [‘73 was a year of change for him, I suppose] and these were two people he genuinely wanted to work with too, and also the reasoning for the original Jeff Beck Group going up in pretty much flames.
I’ll mention here that in between the disillusion of the Jeff Beck Group 1.0 and 2.0 Beck was not only considered for replacement of Syd Barret as Pink Floyd’s guitarist [though this fell through, as according to drummer Nick Mason everyone in the band was too afraid to approach him, his image of being moody, weird, and unapproachable proceeding him quite faithfully], but also to be The Rolling Stones new lead guitarist in 1969 following Brian Jones’ parting of the band. He would say no at the time, be auditioned again in 1975 after Mick Taylors’ departure, and once more say no. The spot would ironically be filled by Beck’s fired original guitarist-turned-bassist-turned-guitarist-again Ron Wood, whose finger in every musical pie is too much to get into here. Beck wouldn’t regret his turn downs of being in the band, stating he was on a different musical path then The Stones. Also during this time Beck would lay down the original drumbeat for Superstition by Stevie Wonder, as well as playing on the album it comes from, Talking Book. Beck, Bogart, and Appice had a cover of the song that was supposed to be released first, though when the album was delayed, Wonder released his version as the lead single, and it went on to become one of his signature songs as everyone knows it as.
So back to Beck, Bogert, Appice: it was a killer album. You could sense the cohesion that was had between Beck and his rhythm section for the
first time in… in well his whole career. The instrumental is what drives the album, despite it being a vocal piece. This was also the first time in his vocally-charged music career he didn't have
to work with a frontman, the band all taking turns throughout the album on vocal tracks [Beck with a whopping one, the album's opener Black Cat Moan]. What could lead to this group's disbandment? Beck, the terribly consistent denominator. He left in 1974, and… well it would’ve been pretty damn hard to have a band of only drums and bass. The group, similar to his previous three he’d broken up, was successful, there was essentially no reason to split, especially due to his high level of importance in each of these groups [two of which had his name in the title], so why?
Why isn’t important as 1975 would be the year that Beck showcased that even if he had a tendency to be a massive dick to each and every person who worked on any piece of music he helped create from 1966 to 1974 that damn was he deserving of his praise. Beck would release the George Martin produced Blow by Blow to commercial and critical success, an album credited to just Jeff Beck. He dropped the group shtick, I assume realizing that he was not cut out for collaboration, and created what would set the standard for electric guitar-based jazz. Blow by Blow is a masterclass in all things Beck and an essential listen to anyone who even half cares about music. The piece would cement Beck as a fixture of rock and roll, it would showcase to the world that even if he had a choppy output and a horrible history of keeping his employees happy he was damn sure one of the greatest to ever do it. The album features an instrumental of a song penned by none other than Stevie Wonder, Cause We Ended As Lovers. The song is a clearcut showcase of how Beck sings with his guitar. It’s one thing to hear him duet with singers through the instrument, another to hear him do it without any accompaniment of voice at all. The story comes through in a way that is spellbinding, a contender for one of the greatest instrumental pieces of modern music, if not music in general. The year after would see the release of a sister album for Blow by Blow: 1976’s Wired. The album would continue the creative path Beck was on with its predecessor, being considered a new standard for how instrumental rock should be played. The man had seemingly proved everything he had to prove: that The Yardbirds fucked up kicking him out, that he didn’t need a singer to sing for him, and that he sure as hell was talented enough to be considered one of the best to ever do it [and if we’re being truthful: THE best]. Saying all this, Beck was of course due to drop his 15 minutes of being considered the unbeatable king of electric guitar with the same thing that had been plaguing him his whole career: himself.
Beck was never an artist who released an album a year because he truly wanted to. There are obvious drops in quality from one album to another [see Truth to Beck-ola, or Rough and Ready to self titled: the only two back to back pieces that weren’t night and day in terms of quality were that of Blow by Blow and Wired], so his albums would start to have multiple years in between releases. This wasn’t a great career move to utilize for going into the 1980s, a time where being fast, consistent, and loud were some of the most important attributes to success, to staying on top. Take Beck, the quiet, calculated, meticulous, and hermit that he was, and shove him into the overexposed, capitalistic, in-your-face landscape of music that prevailed throughout the decade and you’ll have the exact reason one of his weirdest career moves maybe ever happened [and that’s saying a lot, as this is mister can’t hold a band, ‘I turned down The Rolling Stones at the height of their fame’].
Beck’s former singer made a name for himself, as in no world would a voice like Rod Stewart’s ever really find a way to stay away from stardom. Well, to say the least, the 80s were very kind to a man who, being the musical chameleon he is, was able to seamlessly shift from his late 70s disco-chic to a synth-pop king. Unlike many of Stewart’s contemporaries, it never felt as though he was trying too hard to fit in and stay relevant with what was now the move. His 80s pop wasn’t considered a cringy attempt by a pass-their-prime 70s star because in everyone's eyes he was the unequivocal champ of doing the popular genre and then dipping to find the next one. Does he excel at one genre over another? No one knows because he’s never stayed in one long enough to test its longevity. The point here is that in 1984, Rod Stewart was still a big ticket item, and Jeff Beck was sadly not. In a reconciliation that was never publicized, the “band” was back together and Beck now had himself a solo on and a starring role in Stewart’s Infatuation. I bet he was thrilled. Infatuation is the same as every other sleazy 80s synth rock song of its day, yet stood apart, maybe due to the killer solo injected by rock’s best? Maybe so. The following year would see another collaboration between the two, as well as a bit of a pick up for Beck’s career. They covered the Curtis
Mayfield classic People Get Ready, a duet of sorts [if you count Beck’s guitar as singing, which it clearly does here] that would become an MTV staple, for Beck’s 1985 release Flash, his first not purely instrumental release in a decade. Now, for a man who hadn’t really been making waves in the eyes of young people this was big. This was you see the video, go out and buy all his stuff big. This was ‘Jeff Beck is the best to ever do it’ big. By the grace of God this man would even find himself starring in another movie! [Twins, for some odd reason]. Would any of this make his next album come out any sooner? Nope. You just can’t take dramatic pauses away from a man who will utilize them so beautifully [for the most part]. [[Beck also had tinnitus during this time, so that was more so the reason for his lack of work, though not the only reasoning]].
The 1990s would see Beck at his most active and collaborative: Jon Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory, the Days of Thunder score, album work with Roger Waters and Kate Bush were all graced with Beck’s guitar. That’s more collaboration in ten years than he’d done in the thirty preceding it. He would release three albums throughout the decade, similarly to the 80s. He would also see his first Rock Hall induction, in 1992 with The Yardbirds, one in which upon being asked to up to the microphone loudly stated, after telling the whole room that he has done music outside of his two year stretch with the band, and I quote: “Somebody told me I should be proud tonight, but I’m not, because they kicked me out: fuck them!" and he walked right off stage left. Name a more iconic induction, I dare you! It would be in 2009 he was inducted as a solo artist, and we still wait to see an induction of the Jeff Beck Group [which, yes, I do still await and expect]. The 2000s were similar in vein to the 1990s, with more collaboration and live performances than ever before. A standout was his residency at Ronnie Scott’s, something I urge anyone who cares about guitar to check out. He does a rendition of The Beatles' A Day in the Life so good it could bring a tear to your eye. And yes, you heard that right: he does an almost exclusive guitar cover of one of The Beatles most orchestral and lyrically intricate songs, better than the band themselves. It’s absolutely mindblowing, and may just be the most concrete proof he’s the most talented man to pick up a guitar.
Back to our original inquiry: what makes someone the greatest of all time? Essentially, it boils down to being Jeff Beck. Being someone so talented you can fuck everyone over and keep friends, being someone who makes the weirdest, most commercially unsuccessful career moves in all of rock history and still somehow finding astronomical success when actually attempting to do contribute to the mainstream popularity contest. By all accounts, being outed from The Yardbirds whilst being their most promising young guitarist should’ve killed his career, but he only got more influential and successful not being in their group. He gave Rod Stewart, Micky Waller, and Ron Wood their first huge break, pioneered what would become Led Zeppelin and hard rock, set a new standard for instrumental rock music, reinvented the way an electric guitar could be used to tell a story, was a part of one of the successful MTV videos of 1985, and was featured on dozens of rock classics and film soundtracks in between all those. All of which isn’t part of discussing the genuine technique of his playing: the weaving he does with voices, his incredible ability to play both a Stratocaster and Telecaster effortlessly, as well as the personality that came through along with his technical wizardry. He could go from a piece like Shapes of Things to Pork Pie, and then do a perfect cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, all sounding unique and clearly discernible as him without being buried under a style to showcase just how Beck it was. He’s an eight time Grammy winner, every award being given for his instrumental pieces, the wins spanning from 1976 all the way to 2010.
To say any guitarist can come close to Beck’s achievements in originality in the art form of electric guitar is impossible. To excel in so many avenues, popularize so many genres, and to not truly have to grasp trends to remain at the top of the pack is not an easy feat. To go into a decade like the 1980s, completely unwilling to truly throw yourself into the fast, and often soulless world of popular music and still come out on top is a perfect testament to how talented Jeff Beck truly was. When glam was popular, he went to the blues, when disco was peaking he went jazz, even featuring on a synth pop song he was doing a gritty solo, the man wasn’t to be tied to anything that would make him popular. Him actively running from the guitar hero label is exactly what made him one. I’d say his only real competition for greatest of all time is Jimi Hendrix, and let me just say that is not bad company to keep at the top.
If nothing else Jeff Beck showcased how being the world’s most temperamental, petty musician of all time actually works out. That and talent, I guess.
Find some essential Jeff Beck tracks mentioned here and more:
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